Rebecca Schneider
Associate Professor, Natural Resources and the Environment

Rebecca Schneider’s program focuses on integrated, watershed-based, and sustainable water resource management in the face of climate change. Her research, extension, and teaching all revolve around different facets of this topic. Currently, her primary research program is focused on how networks of roadside ditches that criss-cross watersheds contribute to flooding, droughts, and degraded water quality in downstream waters. A second effort is investigating how restoration of organic matter in wetland and terrestrial soils can help to improve hydrologic and biogeochemical functions.Over the past several years, she has worked with students and collaborators and developed a successful research-extension program that addresses both the theoretical and applied sides of plant-water interactions. The research findings have been translated into several extension programs aimed at improving management of roadside drainage networks to reduce flooding and water pollution, improving watershed management as a buffer against climate change, a sustainable approach to managing aquatic weeds, and improving streamside protection. She has also developed a successful companion undergraduate course that teaches the broader set of ecological issues associated with water resource management.
Awards & Honors
- Fuertes Diversity Award - Honorable Mention 2016 Cornell Office of Academic Diversity
- Faculty Fellow 2011 Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability
- Excellence in Lake Stewardship Award 2017 New York State Federation of Lake Associations
Courses Taught
- NTRES 4990: Undergraduate Research
Contact Information
Fernow Hall 220
Ithaca, NY 14853
rls11 [at] cornell.edu
Rebecca in the news
News
Those are some of the questions scholars will study with the help of $118,000 in grants awarded by the Cornell Center for Social Sciences (CCSS). The center this spring funded 14 research projects and two conferences , involving two-dozen...
- Natural Resources and the Environment
- Department of Communication
- Communication

News
A new collaboration between the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and The Nature Conservancy will fund three studies that look for long-term, sustainable solutions to help adapt to the effects of intensifying climate change.
- Cornell Atkinson
- Cornell Cooperative Extension
- Soil and Crop Sciences Section